


An Understanding

by BadgerSigil



Series: Dumpster Party [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Defenders (Comic)
Genre: Graphic Description of Injury, Jess internally swears a lot, M/M, Mentioned Clint Barton - Freeform, mature rating for bad language, not massively but just to be safe yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 10:43:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7571119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadgerSigil/pseuds/BadgerSigil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Who's the woman?" Asks Castle.<br/>"Jessica Jones." She says, voice blunt. There's an awkward tension between the two men that is annoying her more than anything else.<br/>He swings his head to look at her and shifts a little.<br/>"What, no mask? No fancy nickname?" He says, slightly mocking but a genuine question.<br/>"Never saw the need." She shrugs. He grunts again and nods.</p><p>When Matt gets it into his head that they would be better off reaching out to Castle than leaving him isolated, Jess is not convinced.<br/>Sequel to Loosely Organised which is the first in this series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Understanding

**Author's Note:**

> I know I tagged Matt/Frank up there, but that is not the focus of this one, it just sort of happens in the background while Jessica and Frank become weird friends.
> 
> Recommend reading part 1 in the series 'Loosely Organised' which explains how the team all got together, but they all hang out in a converted abandoned subway station base and team up against major neighborhood threats is all you really need to know. This actually started as a part of 'Loosely Organised' but Frank is extra and it got a bit out of proportion so it gets to be its own thing. Anyway that's why it's kinda patchy.
> 
> Thanks to squirrel_whisperer for being incredible and longsuffering, proofreading and helping me out, I will finish this crazy train eventually, thanks for riding it with me so far.
> 
> Thanks to Crowfether for her proofing you're a gem <3
> 
> No formatting but I'll probably come back and add italics later.

It's a hot night, and humid. Jessica's hair is doing unnatural things. It's actually too hot for her jacket, really, but she'll be damned if she's taking off that superficial layer of protection right now. The city is sweaty, Jessica is sweaty, and she's weirdly nervous about this whole meeting-with-a-murderer thing. Actually, considering, it's not that weird. Would be weird not to be. Technically speaking, she is a murderer. Matt didn't bring that up. That's what swayed her in the end, if she's honest. She didn't have to explain how that was different. She takes a swig from her flask and screws the lid back on. When she sees Matt leap across the gap between the rooftops above her, she jumps.

They haven't rehearsed it, obviously, but Jessica lands right beside Matt as if they have. He nods to her and they walk. There's the big brick square that holds the stairwell blocking a section of roof from view, and that blindspot is what Matt walks towards, Jessica in step. As they round the edge, a figure comes into view, sitting at an easy slouch on wall around the edge of the roof.  
"Castle." Matt says, casual as you please. Castle grunts out a greeting. The two of them stop a few feet away. Castle is watching them, head cocked back, hands in the pockets of his jacket. His mouth is slightly open. She can't work out if the mild tension in it is a little smirk of amusement or a frown. His hair is longer than it was when he was on the news. Not long, but not marine length now, slightly wavy, and there's more of a beard than a shadow on his jaw.  
"Who's the woman?"  
"Jessica Jones." She says, voice blunt. There's an awkward tension between the two men that is annoying her more than anything else.  
He swings his head to look at her and shifts a little.  
"What, no mask? No fancy nickname?" He says, slightly mocking but a genuine question.  
"Never saw the need." She shrugs. He grunts again and nods.  
"What did you want to talk about, Red?"  
"The hand are running some kind of operation on the dock tomorrow. Shipment of people, we think."  
"You don't have to do the devil voice thing with me, Murdock. I know who you are." Jessica flicks her eyes to Matt for just a second but he hasn't reacted at all. Castle drops his head for a second and when he looks up, he's squinting a bit, frowning more, but it's not a threat, he's thinking. "I know about the delivery."  
"We know you do, that's why we're here."  
"Oh so it's a 'we' now?" He seems faintly amused by this, looking from Matt to Jessica. "So what, you want me to join your little...what, team?"  
"Who said it's a team?" Jessica says testily. Castle ignores her.  
"It's my lead." He frowns at Matt, eyes narrowed.  
"Our lead too." Matt says, voice low and calm. "Might be best to team up on this one. Since we're both in the area."  
"But no killing, right?" Castle grimaces like there's a bad taste in his mouth and shakes his head.  
"Look Castle, you think you can handle this. Maybe you can." Jessica's voice is flat. She's about run out of patience here. "Maybe not. Maybe this is the day you go down. All evidence points to this being a big deal. You mess this up and it's a bloodbath." He turns to look at her as she speaks, still frowning, and there is a subtle change in his body language when she says the last word.  
"So what you're doin' me a favour?" Frank's voice has hardened just a little.  
"I'm not going to pretend that it wouldn't be useful to us if you helped us out."  
"Mm." He grunts again, eyes narrowed at Jessica now.  
"But this lone wolf bullshit has got to end sometime." She doesn't shout, but her voice is firm and just a little raised. Castle looks almost taken aback. "Maybe it doesn't end at the dock tomorrow. Maybe you have weeks or months, but you know the end's coming. You want it to end bloody or end with us at your back?" He considers her, seriously now.  
"Good speech." He says with another one of those loose, humourless smiles that shows too many teeth. "But you're really saying you want to have my back?" He shifts his sitting position on the wall.

All at once, something clicks and she can feel the familiar tension behind his fake slouch in her own shoulders. The effort of putting across a relaxed attitude when all you want to do is run a mile. Nervous energy carefully held tight and contained in a bored posture. Their eyes meet. Something like recognition flares there, and she knows he can see it mirrored in her's. She'd thought Murdock was insane, honestly, when he'd asked her to come meet Castle. "I can't stop him." He'd said. "This could be the perfect opportunity to form a rapport. The longer he's left alone the more dangerous he could get." And all at once she gets it.  
"What's your story, Jones?" Castle's brow is knitted now and it's almost like he's impressed.  
"Got a shitty one. Who doesn't." She shrugs. "You in?"  
"Ok." He nods.  
"Really?" Matt sounds mildly surprised.  
"Why not?" Castle smiles, properly this time. Or well, nearly. "You're only gonna show up anyway and get in my way."

*

“Frank covers me, I go in, you come in from the top and surprise everyone.”  
“We know the plan, Jones.” Castle is pumped, Jess hardly needs to glance at him to see that. He’s not bouncing about like a boxing rabbit or whatever the shit it is Matt does before a fight, but there’s this weird potential fire about him, like a gun with the safety off.  
“Aren’t you meant to be a fucking tactician?” She snaps at him. Matt is bobbing about in her peripheral vision and it’s actually a bit annoying.  
“That’s why I don’t need to go over it again.” He says, eerily calm considering they’re about to do. Or rather, no more tense than usual. Jessica scowls. Castle does that thing with his head, the cocky tip backwards. No wonder he appears to get himself punched in the face so regularly. Jessica scowls. “You stressin’ out on us, Sunshine?”  
“Sunshine? Really?” Jessica says and folds her arms.  
“He says that.” Matt shrugs. Jessica looks from one to the other. There’s a weird sort of tension between them again, all of a sudden.  
“Good to know it’s not uh, personal.” She says carefully, not really knowing what this is or feeling eager to find out right now.  
“Time to move.”

Afterwards, when the job is done and the three of them regroup before they part in the face of the encroaching sirens, he says it again, ‘Sunshine’, and there’s a gruff sort of respect in it, verging on, dare she think it, fondness.

*

Jessica makes sure she approaches from more or less the front, stepping off the fire escape when she's sure he's already spotted her, just for the sake of manners. She doesn't know if he's having a good day, yet. The first time she surprised him she nearly took a bullet to the face. Castle’s apology had come out halting and inarticulate, like gears grinding and tearing around an obstruction. That had been almost more unsettling than, you know, almost dying. Dropping to the ground is a bit like descending into a cloud of stale piss. Standard Hell's Kitchen but, like, particularly. She takes special care to land at a crouch without touching the concrete with her hands and has a bit of an internal smirk at what this must smell like to Matt.  
"Castle." She greets him with a casual raised hand.  
"Jones." He nods at her when she's close enough.  
"Murdock here yet?" Jessica says casually.  
"Late as usual." He doesn't seem surprised or bothered by this, leaning nonchalantly against the alleyway wall. Or as nonchalantly as he ever did anything. Jessica snorts in response and swaggers towards him, drawing a hip flask out of her back pocket.  
"Your 'late' is everyone else's 'early', Frank." He takes a step towards her as Jess unscrews the top, and suddenly there's a slightly bruised but surprisingly soft-looking hand between her face and the flask. She glares at him and opens her mouth to say something probably very rude and certainly not the sort of thing any normal person would think to say to Frank Castle, when she realises he's holding out a thermos for her to take. It's purple. She grimaces.  
"Not my color, thanks."  
"Gotta stay sharp." His voice is gruff, the gruffest actually, as always, but his expression is weirdly earnest. It looks almost ridiculous on him, especially under its usual assortment of yellowing bruises. She swallows down the surge of lung-shrinking something in her chest at the sight of the coffee he presumably made for her himself, and does a spectacular eyeroll.  
"Dammit Castle you're not my real dad." It comes out before she can catch it in any kind of filter. Castle freezes. Jessica's breath stops short. She catches the complicated little spasm of emotions that Frank doesn't quite manage to keep from showing on his face before he drops his head. For an improbably stretched and tense few seconds, Jessica lets guilt rise clawingly up her chest. There had to be a dozen lines she just crossed, fucking stupid, thoughtless... but then she sees a weird little smile twitching the corners of his mouth. Frank doesn't raise his head, just lets out a wheezing little "huh" of a chuckle and rocks sideways to bump his shoulder against hers. It's an almost frustratingly gentle little nudge, as if she couldn't break him in half with one arm.

Castle still doesn't look up, just raises the flask to her again. Jessica sighs and takes it from his hand. She nods awkwardly, Frank looks to the side, away from Jessica, and then squints up at the rooftops as if nothing happened.

Jessica puts her hip flask away. She pours a coffee and leans her back against the wall. After a moment, he joins her. They drink their coffee in silence for a while.  
"Purple, huh." He says, very quietly, still squinting deliberately around the alleyway and not at her. For her benefit this time.  
"Am I that obvious?" She kicks vaguely at a chunk of brick laying a little way away.  
"Sorry." He says, a stiff little rumble.  
"Everyone is." More silence at that. Frank turns to her suddenly.  
"Hope to god Red didn't hear any of that shit." Jessica snorts out a surprised laugh. He's doing that slightly helpless lopsided grin she's only ever seen a couple of times. She nudges her shoulder into his this time.  
"Let's be honest, he almost definitely did."  
"What have I done now?" Matt says innocently from somewhere overhead. Jessica cranes to see which direction he came from, Frank doesn't bother. The ever-intimidating Devil-of-Hell's-Kitchen drops down the last couple of flights of fire escape. He lands a few feet from them and straightens up, wrinkling up his nose as he does.  
"What, you couldn't have picked a pissier alleyway, Castle?" Frank shrugs one shoulder, deadpan.  
"Couldn't find one." Matt tilts his head a bit and Jessica becomes acutely aware of her thermos sitting in her hand, the cup sending a toxic-smelling trail of steam into the air. She takes a noisy swig and glowers pointedly at Matt, daring him to say anything.

*

There's a man at the end of the corridor. Malcolm stands stock still in the elevator and stares, as if blinking enough times will banish the hunched up shadow he can see crouching just outside Jessica's door. He has his back to Malcolm, fiddling with the handle. In the inevitably flickering half-light, Malcolm can tell that he's massive, even under the jacket. The scarred, shaved back of his head alone tells him he wouldn't begin to stand a chance. Is Jessica in? He doesn't think so. She’s spending an awful lot of time at that new base of hers. The blood surging through his ears more or less drowns out the metallic sound of whatever he's doing to the lock. They aren't loud. Just as it occurs to Malcolm that he can't recall Jessica having her lock fixed since last time it broke, there's a click and the man swings the door open, grunts, closes it again, and resumes his motions, which now look rather a lot more like someone using a screwdriver than picking a lock. Oh. The elevator dings and Malcolm hurriedly shoulders his way through it before the door can close on him.

He can't help but stare at the man that he now realises is fitting a lock on Jessica's door, as he tries to sidle naturally to his own apartment. Now he can get a closer look, he registers the bulk and black combat gear at a closer range which doesn't do much to relieve his tension.  
"You gonna stand and watch all night?" The man grunts without turning. Malcolm jumps half out of his skin and shoves his hands hurriedly into his pockets to rummages for his keys. Mystery anonymous handyman sounds as if he gargles broken glass every morning and the glass comes out the worse for wear.  
"You a uh, a friend of Jess'?" Malcolm says, searching through the bunch. Why the shit does he have so many keys? He doesn't even own a car. The man just shrugs and turns to glance at Malcolm, brow furrowed.  
"You that Malcolm kid she talks about?" Recognition hits Malcolm like a ton of bricks. The keys hit the floor. He drives after them. Thankfully, Frank fucking Castle has turned his back on Malcolm again, apparently intent on his lock-installation, and doesn't appear to notice.  
"Y-yeah that's me anyway uh thanks, uh thank you. Yeah." Malcolm half falls through his door in his haste to get inside.

In the morning, he finds a key slipped under his door.

*

"So ah." Malcolm runs a hand nervously over the back of his neck. Jessica swings her head towards him with only a bit of a grimace. He doesn't know if it's his imagination, but she seems an awful lot less hungover than usual for a Monday morning.  
"You forget the coffee?"  
"Huh? No." He swings the plastic bag in his hand and crosses to the kitchen to deposit the tin in there. "Is there any reason," he says carefully, busying his hands with the coffee pot. "why the uh, the uh The Punisher, would be fixing the lock on your front door?" Jessica lets out a long, frustrated hiss of breath.  
"So that's who keeps doing that. I fucking knew it." He leans back to stare at her through the kitchen door.  
"You know him?"  
"No, genius." Jessica scoffs. "He just wanders around fixing every broken lock in the city."  
"Ok but how?" She rolls her eyes and leans back in her chair, waving a hand dismissively.  
"Work, alright. You making coffee or what?"

"Has this been going on long?" Malcolm asks, giving the milk a sniff. Jessica is leaning on the door frame absently running a possibly clean tea towel over a freshly washed coffee mug.  
"Few months." Her brow furrows into a scowl tinged with bemusement and she stares out the window and summons what looks like her best attempt at irritation.  
"I think he's sort of adopted me." She rolls her eyes. "Fill up my thermos will you?"

 

***

The long-running case that kept the three of them together is over. Anticlimactic as Jessica personally prefers it, only it being over means that once they’ve had their celebratory pizza and gruff back slapping session, contact with Frank drops off. Jess doesn’t really have anyone to talk to regarding how she feels about that. Matt is there, but his responses are too guarded and over-thought, the whole concept of the collaboration too much of a complicated moral tangle for him to be completely honest with himself one way or the other. The others don’t get it. Clint is useless and doesn’t even pick up on her unsubtle attempts to start a discussion involving feelings which is hard enough for her without the other person being utterly clueless. Danny doesn't understand her conflict over it, for him friendship is naturally built up after a number of of shared fights, and she gives up. Trish doesn’t know him beyond Jessica’s vague references to a guy she’s been working with and she is mildly afraid of how she’ll react if she connects the dots. Even Luke, an ever stable and stoic point of reference, looks at her with a frown that is almost tinged with concern when she lets slip a hint that she might, maybe, possibly, worry about him.

Malcolm is the one in the end, who knocks some sense into her, as always.  
“You miss him.” He says bluntly, and with a sort of pained expression, like he can’t exactly believe who they’re talking about but can’t deny it. “The emotions you are feeling are known as ‘fondness’.” She glares at him and tells him that there’s no way that’s what it is and of course she doesn’t miss him, she hardly knows him. Malcolm shrugs and narrows his eyes with the air of a man who is about to dive into an icy lake for some deeply necessary reason.  
“You have an understanding with this guy, god help us all, and you’re a weird warrior type, course you’ve bonded over this thing.” She stubbornly informs him that they’re out of peanut butter.

She swings by Frank’s apartment later though, or well, the gloomy little one room place he’s using like an armory these days, just to check he’s still alive, not even intending to let him see her. It’s empty. She stands on the fire escape feeling stupid, dials his burner phone feeling even more so. Disconnected. She’s angry. That’s what annoys her the most actually, that she’s angry that he’s just gone like that. What did she expect? A friend? A new drinking buddy?

***

Jess yawns her way down the stairs and down the track that leads to base. Her hip flask is empty. If she's honest, she needs caffeine more than anything else right now. Or sleep, but that will have to wait because she has some progress to make on one of her own cases before 10 am the next morning and it's already 3. She unlocks the door and stumbles in, hoping Matt's not trying to sleep on one of the bunks because she probably sounds like a herd of elephants to him. She slaps at the switch and the rigged flood lights in the entrance hall (station platform) come up. She doesn't bother with any others, the light from the floods spills all the way through to the lounge/kitchen area and she's dazzled herself anyway. So much so, that it takes her tired ears to catch the breathing before she turns to sees the shape curled on the biggest faded couch. Looks like Matt didn't make it to the bunks then.

She's smiling to herself, hoping he's out for the count hard enough to not hear the kettle come up to the boil (loud to a regular person) when it clicks and the sound begins to drop. There's a bassy snore and she blinks. Matt doesn't sound like that. She frowns. It's unlike Luke to... Jessica squints at the sofa. Doesn't look like Luke, not big enough, but... She moves towards it, stealthy even though he's already slept through much louder. One of the blankets they keep folded over the back mostly covers the shape, though one look at the discarded combat boots dumped none too neatly beside the coffee table, and she knows who it is. The realisation does nothing to thin her confusion. If anything, it gets thicker.  
"Castle?" She blurts in surprise, forgetting herself.

The whole solid bulk of him shoots up into a sitting position with a sort of tight intake of breath that is part panicked cry. She holds up her hands, trying not to connect too hard to the reeling fear she sees take over his face in the small collection of seconds it takes him to notice her. His eyes are still darting around, but she sees a visible effort to appear calm.  
"Oh it's you." He says a little blearily. Usually, that kind of phrase, tinged with relief as it is, would be worthy of an eyeroll, but Castle has seen her launch men bigger than him thirty feet in the air with a casual swipe. She understands with a kind of lurching adjustment, that her presence is making him feel safer.

The disorientation is fading now, his too-wide eyes settling and getting their focus back.  
"What are you doing here?" She asks. It comes out a lot more gently than she intended. His head jerks around to stare at her though.  
"Was close." He says, frowning like he isn't sure himself. Now her eyes have adjusted to the light, she can see how pale he is. There's dark patches under his eyes, his facial hair is often verging on a beard these days, but now it's managed to get itself there, and his hair, much longer than she's ever seen him allow it to get, is distinctly ruffled.  
"What are you hurt?" She moves towards him, just a couple of steps, but he twitches away. He shakes his head and grimaces at his own reaction.  
"Just my leg."  
"Just your leg?"  
"Shouldn't be here, m'sorry." He shifts, but he's moving like his body is something too heavy he's trying to lift. He bites back some kind of pain reaction and she closes the space between them to put a hand on his shoulder. He only flinches a little at the contact. She was expecting worse. She would have reacted worse.  
"Don't get up."  
"Should go." He says, voice tight with something she can't identify.  
"No offence man, but I'm not sure you can right now. You look like death." He stares at her like he's going to object but he's swaying with the effort of just sitting, she can feel it under her hand. He nods and lets her push his back against the cushions. She stands and moves to the kitchen area. She opens her mouth to offer him coffee but something stops her.  
"You hungry?" His head swings round but it's enthusiasm rather than fear she sees on his face this time.  
"If you're eating I mean... Yeah, please." There's a definite note of desperation that he can't keep hidden.

Mercifully there's bread and cheese and even a bit of ham. Clint must have been in. He did seem to enjoy being the one with his shit most together in the group. Jessica let him have it, something told her he didn't feel like he quite kept up with his Avengers buddies. She and the others, they are his real people, so he does what he can.  
"So what's going on with you?" Jessica says, buttering the bread.  
"What's going on with me?" He wheezes out a laugh. "You've never met me without there being stuff going on with me, kid." Jess shrugs at that. He's not wrong.  
"OK, so I mean, recently."  
"Recently what? What do you care?" He grumbles.  
"Who've you been messing with?"  
"Who? Does it matter to you?" The words snap out hard and she stares at him.  
"Jeeze you wanna be less defensive?"  
"No I mean it Jones. What do you care? Why're you suddenly so interested-"  
"Maybe I'm just pretending to care, maybe I don't give a shiny shit how you are-"  
"Great then leave me the fuck alone-"  
"You came here yourself, asshole, maybe I just want to be sure you haven't shown a bunch of ninjas where to find us or some shit-"  
"You want me out of here? Fine I'm gettin' out of here." He struggles upright. "You think you can just use me whenever you want and I'm just gonna-" he stifles a cry of pain as he swings his legs down to the ground.  
"For fuck's sake Castle I'm trying to help you!" Jessica half yells at him, voice thick with exasperation. Frank stops short and stares at her, mouth slightly open, brow furrowed like she's physically knocked him off balance. He sits in silence for some time, one hand clenched on the sofa cushion beside him, shoulders hunched up. She can see him actively trying to regulate his own breathing.  
"Sorry I yelled." His voice is a croak. It's the last thing she expected him to say. He can't look at her, head angled away and down like he's trying to hide his face. Frank blows out a long breath. "Ok Sunshine, you got me." A gravelly syllable of laughter comes out. He leans back and closes his eyes.  
"They got my apartment. Watching it. Trying to hunt me down."  
"Who's they?"  
"Not the hand. Just a regular group of thugs I had my eye on. Turns out they were smarter than I thought." She sighs.  
"That why half your face is purple?" He opens his eyes to shoot her a tired little smile.  
"Ain't unusual."  
"You getting shot is unusual." She moves across with a couple of sandwiches and a glass of water, sets them on the coffee table. Jessica looks at him then, really looks. There's a glimmer of silver in the darkness. "You wearing your gear still?" She squints in the lack of light. Sure enough, his tactical vest is still firmly buckled on. He shifts. For the first time she realises he's cradling his right hand on his lap.  
"Yeah I uh..."  
"Want help with that?" His brow crinkles. For a second she thinks he's going to brush her off, but he just sighs defeatedly and drops his head.  
"Please." He's not particularly mobile, but between them they get him out of the vest. He's not using his right hand at all. Jess can't get a proper look at it, but from the glimpses she can see it's bruised and swollen.

His spine curves tiredly against the sofa cushions when they're done. His shoulders droop. Jessica puts the vest beside his boots on the ground. Some of the paint has been scraped off, but the skull emblem is still very much apparent.  
"You uh, take art classes at school or what?" He stares at her but then glances at the vest and the ghost of a grin passes over his features.  
"Oh uh, yeah I did." His speech is almost slurring now. She holds out the plate of sandwiches and shakes them practically under his nose until he takes one. This seems to wake him up a bit from the relieved stupor being free of his vest left him in and he bolts it down with tired enthusiasm.  
"My mom, she used to tell me the Captain did art classes before the war. Don't know if it was just bullshit, you know, to encourage me." Frank's face looks different when he's smiling, really smiling. Jessica can't help but smile too.  
"Moms are good like that, mine was."  
"Was?" His face drops and Jessica feels a pang of regret at having made the smile go away.  
"Car accident." She shrugs, means to look away for a second to compose herself, but somehow their eyes meet. It's like a circuit closes. Her eyes and throat sting and both of them break eye contact at the same time.

Jessica munches her way through her sandwich and drinks her coffee. Frank glances once at her cup somewhat hopefully but doesn't say anything. When she's done she feels a bit closer to human and the threat of tears has been firmly wrestled back into its proper place. She puts the empty cup back down.  
"You gonna let me help you now?" She says. He looks at her, blinks a couple of times and then flicks his eyes down.  
"Ok." He says. She grumbles something vague about ungratefulness and slides the coffee table back so that she has enough room to comfortably kneel in front of him. By the time he's propped on a bunch of cushions, leg lying lengthways along the sofa, she has called him a baby several times in various colourful terms, and any remaining colour has drained out of his face.  
"You good?" She says, a note of impatience in her voice that isn't really genuine. Then again, if he will get himself nearly killed. He nods stiffly. A blatant lie, but she's suspicious that it's a hell of alot worse than he's letting on. Her tone seems to have solidified him a little though. His jaw is set and there's that military posture he falls into sometimes. It's a relief, at least her tendency to convert worry into anger is good for something.

It is worse, worse than worse, and Jessica is not a field medic. Castle apparently is often his own field medic but he's semi conscious before she's even gets the makeshift bandage half off, which is- she's heard stories from Matt about Castle- if he's tapping out it's not good. If she'd had any idea there would have been no way she would have allowed him to sit and chat. He actually groans out loud when she pulls it free and she has to clamp a hand on it because how much blood has he already lost? A lot, looks like. This is not a fresh injury.  
"Stop whining it's not that bad." She rolls her eyes at his under reaction to what is likely agony. She's probably pushing too hard because his eyes flicker closed and he makes a kind of weak wheezing, shuddering sound like she's squashing his chest not his leg.  
"You're fine." She says, as if it's a grazed knee rather than a gaping wound and as if he's even conscious enough to hear her at this point.

But she washes everything as best she can, internally cringes the entire way through the examination because Matt has shown her how to stitch people up but this is so much worse and loses Castle before she even gets a fresh bandage on him, which only confirms her instinct that she needs to call in reinforcements. It only takes a quick look to establish that she has no idea what to do with his hand, either. It looks broken. At least two fingers are a bloody mess so she cleans them up, but they look like they aren't quite right and she doesn't want to risk making it worse. It's his trigger hand. The realisation sends a spiderweb of burning ice down her neck and across her shoulders. A few fidgeting moments of sitting back, hands damp with bloodied water, and she nods to herself, wipes them on her jeans and pulls her phone from her pocket.

There's no signal in pretty much the whole base, what with it being underground, so Jess has to climb some stairs up to the now blocked off corridor that would have led above ground. It's weirdly fossilised with advertisements for products that may or may not exist these days and a thick layer of dust covering what is actually a pretty well preserved slice of the subway system from whenever they bricked it up. She examines all of this as she waits for the phone to stop ringing, not looking forward to the conversation she's about to have.  
"Hello?"  
"Claire!" Jessica says with false enthusiasm. By the sounds of the already impatient sigh that crackles Jessica's speaker, she knows it, too.  
"Jessica Jones, to what do I owe the pleasure?" She laughs nervously.  
"Hey uh, how you been?"  
"Details, Jones." Claire said, not unkindly.  
"I have a uh, a friend, really not in a good way. Bit beyond my expertise..." A shorter but harder sigh this time.  
"Does he have any pre-existing conditions I should know about? Like indestructible skin?" She sounds more amused than put off now.  
"100% regular dude." Jessica says and then finds herself laughing at those words as a description of Frank Castle. "But uh, well a bit batshit. But safe. Ish."  
"Right." Claire says. "Anything I should know?"  
"Might be better if I just show you." Silence. Jess is completely convinced this tactic is not going to work, by the time Claire sighs a third time and says.  
"Fine. I get the feeling whatever you're not telling me will only make my inevitable trip across the city more stressful." Jess rattles off the address for the not-so-secret entrance and takes the stairs down two at a time.

*

"How many of you people are there?" Claire says, horrified, as the details of their by now quite homely little base start to make themselves obvious. The makeshift hatstand, the posters Foggy just showed up with unasked one day, and then further in, the soft furniture and the oddly expensive coffee machine.  
"A handful." Claire frowns sideways at her.  
"And I take it you all almost get yourself killed at least once a week, right." It's not a question. She glances at the couch.  
"This my patient?"  
"Mm." Jessica sort of grimaces a smile because it's all she can manage. Frank is not looking well. The big lights are on now for Claire to work. She drops her bag on the coffee table and gets right down to it.  
"Complaints?"  
"Leg. Looks pretty shredded, looks like he got shot by something heavy or got caught in an explosion or... and his hand is kind of..." She trails off because Claire is taking that part in herself and doesn't need Jessica's layman's way of putting it.  
"Looks like he took a few hits to the face too-" she closes her mouth and her eyes narrow suddenly, like a camera doing a focus and zoom. Her face sets and her head turns with a sharp but efficient movement to glare directly at Jessica.  
"This is Frank Castle." Straight to the point. Claire has her expression she gets when she has detected bullshit in a big way. Jessica has to glance at the sheen of sweat on Frank's forehead and be reminded again how strangely small he looks right now to get the courage back to face up to the guilt-inducing glare that Claire is directing at her.  
"Yeah it is."  
"I know it is." She is managing to sound ten times more exasperated than Jessica has ever heard anyone sound and she hasn't raised her voice a bit. "Why is it?"  
"He works with us sometimes. Saved my ass a good few times now." Jessica makes an attempt at 'defensive' but it just comes out desperate.  
"You work with Frank Castle. Matt works with Frank Castle?" Claire doesn't sound rattled exactly, just decidedly disappointed, like she really should have expected this level of stupidity.  
"Can you help him?" Jessica blurts in favour of the ten or so suddenly weak-sounding defences she has building in her mind. Claire snorts darkly.  
"I can't do much for the guy's busted head but I might be able to stop him dying right now." She shakes her head with a hopeless little grimace.  
"That's all I ask." Jessica says a little meekly. Something about Claire shoots a laser right through her usual grouchy window dressing and makes the whole thing seem pointless.

*

Castle is very much out cold throughout the whole procedure and though Claire doesn't say anything besides barked orders regarding what to hold or press down on or stabilise, Jessica can't help but worry that the help is coming too late. Claire sorts it all out though, works through it with steady precision. Leg first, then sets and binds up his hand. Once that's all supported she goes about systematically checking for other injuries and huffs in annoyance when she finds the network of bruising across his torso. By the time she's pulling off her gloves her frown has lessened a bit.  
"He's stable. I'm going to stay and monitor for a while to be sure. He'll need antibiotics. That leg's been messed up for a while." Jess nods and glances nervously at the fresh bandages. "How did he even get here on that?" Claire shakes her head disbelievingly. Jessica shrugs.  
"Lots of glaring and grunting probably. He was a marine." She adds as if that explains everything.  
"If you'd said machine I would be less surprised, and I was just up to my elbows in his blood." She blows out a long breath and flops back into the chair she's been perching on.  
"Coffee?" Jess says because what else can she say. Claire smiles and rolls her head towards her, despite the fact that a coffee is hardly a significant peace offering in the face of asking her to come and stitch up a known mass murderer.  
"Please."

It's weirdly nice to just sit and catch up over a cup of coffee. Weird only because of the circumstances, Claire would have clicked with Jessica however they met, probably.  
"How the hell are you so relaxed right now?" Claire has just told her an excellent anecdote about a particularly stubborn patient and stifling her laughter reminds her what the two of them are even doing here. Claire snorts, the sound muffled by the coffee she's hugging close to her chin.  
"Oh please, compared to a few hours in the ER this is practically a spa weekend."  
"Even with..." She gestures across to the couch.  
"Hey there's usually more than one idiot trying his best to get dead." Claire shrugs and then her face softens into a small smile. "Besides, you're worried. If you care, presumably that's someone worth saving over there." Jessica rolls her eyes.  
"Could be a bit of a reach but thanks, anyway."

Is this the second or third cup of coffee? Jessica can't remember. The tiredness and the caffeine buzz have unstuck themselves to opposite ends of her consciousness at this point like once conjoined starfish. She's dozing when the sound of panicked gasping pull her back to wakefulness. Claire is already there, kneeling beside the couch with no fear whatsoever, one hand pressed firmly against his less bruised shoulder to keep him from moving. Not that there is much chance of that besides the fitful jerking he's doing, as if he's trying to rise but his body won't respond.  
"Frank Castle? Can you hear me? Try not to move." Claire's voice is firm but slow and patient.  
"Who're you?" His eyes are full of the same fear Jess saw when he woke last time, but they're dipping closed erratically, even as he tries to keep them open. His hair is damp with sweat.  
"Frank, it's ok." Jessica moves to Claire side. "She's a friend."  
"Hey sunshine..." Frank's mouth quirks up on one side. It quickly gets taken over by a deep sort of shudder that sends his head lolling to one side and his eyes rolling back in his head. The groan of pain is desperately tired, like it's being dragged out of him. The sound makes Jessica's stomach clench and burn and she has to swallow and force her face neutral, the last thing he needs is to see that.  
"Sunshine?" Claire looks worried.  
"Oh uh that's just..." Claire stares at her like she's not even sure what she's looking at anymore.  
"The Punisher calls you 'Sunshine'?" Claire sounds almost despairing all over again. Jessica grimaces a little hopelessly and shrugs. "Mr Castle." Claire says. Frank shifts but his eyes don't open.  
"Can you try to get him to tell you when his leg got messed up please. And if he's on any... Medication." Claire says at an undertone and Jessica takes a long breath in.  
"Frank." She moves closer and Claire gets out of the way. "Hey. It's Jones." On impulse, she reaches out and grips his left hand. It's firm but strangely smooth. His brow furrows and his eyes open a little. His fingers twitch in hers.  
"What's happening?" He sounds so lost that Jess has to tighten her grip on his hand in an effort to anchor him.  
"It's OK we're helping you." She keeps her voice soft. "Do you remember when you got shot?" He makes a small choking sound that is almost a sob. "In the leg." Jessica says quickly. "When did you get shot in the leg?" His face clears a little and he struggles to open his eyes.  
"What's the date?" He grunts out.  
"9th."  
"Morning, early hours, 6th." Frank manages. Jess hears Claire hiss out a breath through her teeth.  
"I'm going up to call Matt about getting some meds. Watch him." She strides off muttering to herself.

Frank is still twitching restlessly, face bunched up. His eyes blink at her in a confused sort of squint. The mushed up side of his face includes a black eye, but she's almost used to him looking like that.  
"I'she h-helpin’ me?"  
"Yes." Jess rearranges her grip on his hand and he closes his fingers around her's now, weak but there.  
"Why?" His voice, barely a mumble to begin with, cracks.  
"You were in trouble. It's what she does."  
"Jessica." He forces his eyes open, eyebrows scrunched together. She meets his gaze, his eyes are very dark and over-bright. "Y'too good." Is all he manages to say before his eyelids droop closed again. "Y'should s-stay away m'not... M'... Not... I'm..." He tries to turn his head away, to pull his hand out of hers, but she clings on.  
"Oh please, if any of my friends is likely to get me killed it's Matt." She says, even though she knows this is the sort of delirious truth telling that both of them will deny all knowledge of later. Maybe now is the only time to say it, then.  
"You're one of us. We want you to be." She squeezes his fingers gently. "Matt..." She's not sure she should say it but what the hell. He's not going to remember this later. She sniffs and blinks hard. "Matt didn't want to team up to use you like an extra gun ok. He didn't want you out there on your own." Frank's gripping her hand more tightly now. "You don't have to be alone." Frank mumbles something unintelligible. His face is clearer, though that could easily just be the consciousness fading out of him. His hold on her hand loosens slowly.

*

Claire has to leave, probably to go help some other idiot who nearly got themselves killed, and Jess has to be awake for when Matt shows up. Just has to be. He creeps up on her though, because he’s at least partially a ninja or whatever. Frank’s awake with her again, like they’re joined, somehow. His eyes aren’t quite focussed and if he’s feeling his usual waking panic, he’s too weak for it to show. (Jess makes a mental note to somehow find out if that’s a regular thing when non-delirious but she has to put it away for later because she can’t, can’t think about that right now) He sort of gazes dully in the direction of Matt Murdock, standing just through the door to the rec room, wearing an overlarge shirt and grey sweatpants, duffel dangling from one hand, just standing very still, face grim and otherwise unreadable. For one terrible, reeling moment that feels like the floor falling out from under her, Jess thinks she’s wrong, and that’s- it’s not- if she’s wrong, she’s deeply wrong about Matt or Frank or both of them and she can’t… but then he moves and it’s with such urgency that her fears evaporate at once. He drops the bag and the cane like he’s forgotten they were in his hands and yanks the glasses off which makes Jess’s stomach do a weird lurch that she can’t really decode right now. He’s on his knees beside the couch and Frank half flinches away but then Matt’s hands are on his face, each side and Jessica blinks hard because this has to be a dream.  
“Red…” Frank splutters the syllable, unsure and disorientated, like maybe he was expecting a hit. His breath catches a little as Matt’s thumbs brush softly against the corners of his mouth.  
“You come here first you hear me?” He doesn’t sound angry exactly, but his voice is intense and tight. “You don’t wait until you’re half dead, you get hurt we’re here for you.” He runs one hand through Frank’s hair and clenches his teeth. Frank’s lips tug up a little one side and he lifts one hand in a shaky arc to rest on Matt’s face. Jessica gives them a moment, until Frank’s hand gets heavy and drops back to the blanket, before she tugs at Matt’s shoulder.  
“Meds. He needs whatever Claire told you to bring.” Matt coughs and nods, clambering to his feet.

*

Jessica calls her client and makes some half-hearted apologies. Family emergency she says, and it isn’t one word of a lie. Matt sits next to her the rest of the night on the opposite couch from Frank once they’ve sorted him out. It’s like nothing happened. If she’s not mistaken she detects a minor hint of guilt. She’d read it as worry, and she’s sure that’s a part of it, only Matt keeps deliberately turning the direction of his head to and from Frank, as if he’s fighting the impulse to keep on reading him. Jessica doesn’t plan to say anything about it, in fact, she resolves to do the opposite, until Matt’s unease prompts her to snap that he doesn’t have to stay in here and watch him. Matt twitches and stubbornly tells her he’d going to stay and Jessica, not known for her subtlety, tells him that it’s not like they screwed and he doesn’t need to act so damn guilty about it. Matt doesn’t say anything, actually goes red and more impressively, that makes Jessica regret bringing it up.

“Matt listen.” Jess sits up. “I have to ask you this before anyone else shows up, or he wakes up again.”  
“Ok…” Matt says slowly, carefully. Courtroom voice.  
“Did you want Frank close because you wanted him to work with us, or because of how you feel?” She says it flatly, honestly. Matt blinks and tips his head towards her, his version of staring at someone. Takes a breath in as if to respond but falters.  
“Frank shouldn't be alone out there.” He says seriously. “For numerous reasons, leaving him to his own devices is the wrong call, my feelings for him don't come into it.”  
“So you do have feelings for him, huh?” Jess grins. Eventually Matt smiles weakly.  
“Are you making sure my intentions are pure, Jones?” He shakes his head drops his smile. “I don't have… Maybe I do... ” His voice drops as he says that, and Jess feels kind of guilty for pulling that confession out of him because he doesn't sound like he's got his head straight about it yet. “But that's not… I want him safe.” Matt’s voice almost has a pleading edge, like he's begging her to understand. “It's not about that.”  
“Ok, just be careful.” Jess tells him gently. “For both your sakes.” Matt frowns at her words.  
“It wouldn't work, I'm not expecting to…”  
“Why not?” Jess shrugs. “It's no crazier than your lives are. You fight ninjas every other day, Matt.”  
“I’m not the best at relationships.” He’s smiling, but there's a moment when Jess thinks his voice almost wobbles.  
“You're a good guy, Matt.” Jess sighs, but then grins. “Now you're just making excuses.”

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I was surprised as Jess when that happened. She was sort of oblivious.
> 
> The next one is obnoxiously long and all about Matt and Frank and whatever this thing turns into so uh stick around if that sounds like fun I guess.


End file.
